Happy Birthday America!

In honor of our Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1776, I share an excerpt from an analysis of this most profound statement of self-governance that I believe should be recalled by leaders of today.

Some context to the act of defiance and creation of our country we celebrate today from the U.S. Department of State:

"The frontier society of the American colonies had fostered a greater sense of individual autonomy, a sense that government should not interfere in the daily lives of its citizens, and that the purpose of government is to secure and protect the liberty and property of its citizens...The pamphlets that began to appear in the colonies in the early 1760s attacked the growing power of Parliament and warned that such increased authority would undermine their individual liberties...the belief that government exists to preserve the rights of the people, and can be dissolved if it fails to do so, remains a prime article of faith for Americans."

Where I come from in my comments on my blog is a premise that government - meaning those smart enough, committed enough and with all due respect, arrogant enough (perhaps "confident" is the right word) to be elected - needs to be viewed with skepticism. This should not be a surprise to anyone with a sense of our history.

Thanks for being a part of this blog and sharing your skepticisms. I hope it is a source for worthwhile debate and ideas.

When Empathy is All About You

From an editorial in the Camera today:

There's something fraudulent about this eagerness to latch onto the grief of others and embrace the idea that we, too, have been victimized. This trivializes the pain felt by those who have actually lost something and pathologizes normal reactions to tragedy. Empathy is good, but feeling shocked and saddened by the shootings doesn't make us traumatized or special — these feelings make us normal.

Some good points about vicarious trauma.

Clay Evans Leaving the Camera

As a writer and someone who enjoys opining on the government, authority and policy issues in general, I've always respected the style and language of the Daily Camera's Clay Evans. He is leaving the paper for other pursuits after a long career with that paper. Last week his editorial touched on the kind of concern over growing governmental authority that is either outright supported or simply observed with indifference that I've often alluded to in my writings.

As a great local writer prepares to take leave, here is a link to the article. An excerpt:

Perhaps more than any other Soviet bloc nation, East Germany devolved into
a frightening, oppressive police state. The dreaded secret police, or Stasi,
made it its mission to "know everything" about its citizenry. By 1989, when the
Berlin Wall came down, it was estimated that the Stasi had as many as 91,000
full-time employees and a terrifying 300,000 citizen "informants."

This Is The %!@$? I'm Talking About....

Today I read about two issues that reinforce my distrust of the government in general. Local, State, Federal, its all the same. When you read my sweeping skepticisms and worries about motives, these two examples are the sort of things that feed my concerns.

First is the FBI admitting they illegally monitored thousands of Americans. And they insult us with claims of unintentional human error and computer gliches. This happens because I believe there simply are people who are nosy, who like digging around just to see what they will find out. Under the auspices of national security or looking for some particular type of crime, there are people who get satisfaction and a sense of power from getting to look at people who don't know they're looking. After all apologies and claims of accountability, no one will actually be punished. If I saw more accountability I would be slightly less cynical.

Chose your rationale for government authority. On balance I will take the risks associated with privacy and freedom over the fuzzy hodge-podge of well-meaning and nefarious motives for governtmental nannyism.

Second example - the details to Jefferson County officials' alleged theft of files kept on the personal details to an outspoken County critic and the subsequent publishing of those details plus their contradictory explanations.

These things happen even though we're paying attention. This is why my skepticism runs deep.

Military Commissions Act: Fear Beats Logic.

Although this is not a national issues blog, this topic is dramatic and will manifest over the rest of our lives, and I want to bring it up.

On Tuesday President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Broadly, the new Act does 3 things:
1) Gives the US President the power to detain indefinitely anyone he or she deems to have provided material support to anti-US hostilities, and to use secret and coerced evidence to try detainees who will be held in secret US military prisons;
2) Strips the right of detainees to habeas corpus (the traditional right of detainees to challenge their detention);
3) Gives US officials immunity from prosecution for torturing detainees that were captured before the end of 2005 by US military and CIA.

Read the President's speech about the bill here. Read the depiction of what the new laws mean from the other point of view on ZNet here.

The key point to take away is that anyone can be deemed a threat and jailed indefinitely based on the President's perogatives.

As Doonesbury has been sarcastically pointing out lately, the federal government has been peddling fear of terrorism, and as our greatest threat terrorism is the justification for this new authority. Given that a free society can never eliminate the possibility of every conceivable threat, there has to be logical, mature and informed trade-offs made. Sacrificing our morals to allow the interrogation techniques outlined in the Act and the removal of habeas corpus for U.S. residents is shameful, pandering and ultimately worse than the threats the Act fantasizes it deflects.

Congress has given all future presidents the power to arrest and detain indefinitely anyone the president, whoever that is, deems as threats. This is a staggering failure for our Congressional representatives to vote to approve such sweeping authority into the executive branch.

Watch with dismay Keith Olbermann's equally sarcastic dissection of this travesty on YouTube. Why is this Act discussed by opponents with such irreverence? Because it is so illogical a serious conversation is impossible.

Tomorrow, back to the issues in East BoCo. Thanks for the indulgence.